Loomis was floating on the ethers, bruh. In his head rang the classic tenor sax stroll, “WALKIN’ WITH MISTER LEE,” By the great Lee Allen, as in.. “Baahh-duh-duh dumm, ba-dumpadumpa dum dum, Baah duh duh duh dummm, buh dumpah, dumpaaa…” excepting that Loomis was adding in new changes and breaks, and was just bopping around City Park. Hey now, what’s the rushing sound. Did somebody loose the faucets of every bathtub all over Uptown, or what, son?
In the peripheries of his twisted dream vision does he espy a grey wall of rushing sludge, yea high, NO! Can’t be—
Now Loomis is in a terminal day room, with a crude solarium, rimmed with rusty metal casements. (There are, or were, such about certain wards of Charity Hospital, so this was plausible, yet there was brownish water slurping up, higher up over their gowns.)
Loomis thought out loud, “God! This can NOT be happening.
And lissen, NO BODY is trying to move, or even try squirming out of their chairs, is this just a dream?” He shook himself, struggled off the utility bed. He was fully conscious now. Faint music, like some old warped violin Muzak. Definitely the far cry from Mr. Lee Allen! Now the lights were flickering. Cries from staff down the corridor. Moans from the sick. This nightmare was happening. Showtime-it was real! Loomis was stiff and sore, and now the dirty water stung his wounded skin. A TV monitor dangled above his head, sizzling, sputtering, but a geeky mustachioed guy in a plaid jacket and pencil moustache was droning on in the screen, pointing with a stick at a chart fulla arrows, spirals, and slanted lines–
“ISOBARS,” groaned Loomis, remembering his fifth-grade meteorology. Max Mayfield, the frickin’ HURRICANE WONK– but then, POP! PAZZOW!! The TV tube blew. Then the lights crackled out, and Loomis Reader is left in blackness, with random splashing sounds and unfocused screams his only company, in Charity Hospital.
(To be continued)
